Comments on: Real Homes of Genius: That Ben Bernanke is Funny! Sesame Street Cerritos Style.

By: rick

rick — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:11:16 +0000

Mike you should check out Zillow’s discussion boards. It is a tale of two worlds:

Home owners claim their neighbor’s house is worse than theirs and threatons class action law suit (because a lot of buyers use Zestimate when they buy houses). Nice to have such a neighbor.

People probably on the side line siting recent price numbers and telling Zillows they routinely overprice by 30%, and also threatons law suit (because sellers use Zestimate when they sell houses).

Interesting that the owners completely ignore the other group, hence no argument at all.

By: Sugarloaf Real Estate

Sugarloaf Real Estate — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:22:01 +0000

Market fluctuations sure make it difficult to accurately gauge what prices should be. I really think this shows how inaccurate Zestimate’s can be.

Interesting information, but somewhat disappointing about gauging the market.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:07:07 +0000

finally someone shows how rediculous Zillow is. can you send you article to them so they can wake up? or maybe they don’t want to wake up. maybe they want to keep the smoke screen going. I think they are on the NAR’s payroll.

By: Mike Denmark

Mike Denmark — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:32:42 +0000

@Nz Renter
Cheers down under….. That was a really good info from beautiful New Zealand.
I visit NZ often, love the south Island, and I know that nz banks have always given a high interest rate on a short term deposit, 1 - 90 days, but now I can see why, so must be hard to own your own house.
Here in Denmark - (not in the Euro, but tied to it 1€ = 7,5 Dkr), we can deduct 1/3 of the interest on all loans. I have taken a 5% fixed loan - for all 30 years at 5.06%, with the first 10 years interest only, as I invested it in gold/silver.
That means I am paying 3% the next 10 years, so I am betting on that metals with rise with the mega inflation on the way, so I am already well ahead on my investment.The best thing is, that the principle is already DOWN,..6%… due to the % rate is now 5.6% = 96% of original debt…!!!
So every 1% the % rates goes up, it cuts my dbt by 8%…….
Now i am getting 4.5% on the rest of that money…In the SAME bank……
but no worries, NZ, here I come….again….

Merry Christmas to all
And have a happy new year
Mike

By: AnnScott

AnnScott — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:58:58 +0000

new zeeland renter:

You write “NZ households are also more indebted, 160% of annual income versus 140% of annual income in the US.”

Could you explain what you are including as ‘debt’ in those numbers?

While many (but not the majority) of homes in the US do not have a mortgage, most do. Before the bubble hit, US households would traditionally put down 10-20% of the price, finance the rest and were purchasing properties that were 2.8 - 3 times their income. That alone puts US household mortgage debt at 224% of income. And, now with the bubble that ratio is even higher.

And then start adding on the non-mortgage consumer debt (cars, creditcards……) which has grown 3 times faster than income or inflation since 1990.